Conservative or Liberal, Deist or Pagan, Jersey transplant or Lehigh Valley native, we're all in this mess together. Let's talk. Let us do no harm. Today's one-liner: "The shortest way to the distinguishing excellence of any writer is through his hostile critics." Richard LeGallienne

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Thursday, May 21, 2015

17 Magistrate Workers Shortchanged on Raise

Northampton County Council recently approved modest pay increases for NorCo clerical staff. These raises were proposed by Deputy Director of Administration Cathy Allen, who claimed they had been planned since last year. Though this was the Administration's idea, and approved unanimously by Council on April 16, a Bethlehem attorney and former Assistant County Solicitor is reporting that the raises approved are being denied to 17 workers who serve on the front line of our justice system, in the Magisterial District Judge offices.

Attorney Chris Spadoni is reporting that, despite their inclusion in the pay proposal, at least 17 of these technicians have been informed that the approved pay raise will not be honored. This pay raise was supposed to go into effect on April 27. Spadoni has sent several letters to the County's Human Resources Department, and just notified Council Solicitor Phil Lauer about what is going on as well.

So let me get this straight. Brown has awarded raises to at least 17 top county officials. He has done so under some arcane policy manual and without the blessing of County Council. But he is denying raises to 17 other employees that were approved by Council and that he claimed to be his own idea.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

These technicians deal with more rude and miserable people then anyone in the government center and this county administrative political hack is screwing them of a very deserved increase in their salary.......Shame on you!I, as a court officer, must state my opinion anonymously.

The office staff in these courts deal with the brunt of all of your cases originated in this county. They deal daily with scheduling, payment plans for defendants, landlords and everything else. They deal with some of the rudest of people but are required to do their job professionally and with a smile on their faces. The case loads, hearings and scheduling alone leave them way understaffed. Most of these workers have been employed for decades and are dedicated to their jobs, the public and their Judges!! They get paid chicken scratch compared to most anyone else and have worked without a raise for YEARS!! Give them their raises, they deserve them more then anyone else.

After reading several newspaper articles on this, it made me upset that they did not get their raise. In one article it stated that it was not intended for them to get raises, but never was council aware of this when they approved it. Then it stated that the reason they were not entitled to these raises is because they were at the top of their pay scale. Now please correct me if I am wrong since I don’t work in finance or in an HR dept. How does anyone have a pay scale, when our yearly step increase was taken from them! How can you accurately figure that out? I do believe the yearly steps that were given were taking away because of those individuals that just retired, they were complaining that they were topped out in their pay scale and were not going anywhere. Well, county took the yearly step increase away from the county workers; made it a 3% cost of living across the board every February, but then raised the health care, so it was a wash anyway. However, those that we topped out now were getting 3% (of their pay) increased every year. So please tell me how this is any different than giving those individuals a pay raises? Don’t forget those individuals that lost their yearly steps because their contract was in arbitration for how long (2YEARS) and they didn’t get their yearly raise. Taking that into consideration, take a person that’s been with the county 7 years and making $12hr no pay raise or yearly step increase, and then you hire a new person they start out at the same pay rate that individual is at, that’s hard to deal with. And of course union contracts again are way over due and no one got that cost of living, which again is going to be a wash because of the health care hike. We have to sit here and think, everything is going up in cost around us, from food to gas etc. but pay stays the same, well for those that get paid the big bucks, I do believe that if they had to live like some of the lower paid individuals they will get a big reality check. I know an individual that gets paid almost $14hr, has a husband that works and one child and still needs assistance because they can’t afford food, because when you factor in gas, bills, mortgage or rent (which in some cases is higher than a regular mortgage) etc. they can’t afford to feed themselves, how is this right.